All 54 passengers and crew on board the Trigana Air Service flight from Jayapura, the provincial capital, and Oksibil died when the ATR-72 airplane went down Sunday in bad weather.
There was no distress call and the wreckage took two days to find in the heavily forested, mountainous terrain of the country’s easternmost province, according to Cable News Network (CNN).
Villagers told authorities they saw a plane go down on a remote mountain in the province, giving rescue workers a clue of where to look.
Emergency personnel found the bodies of all 49 passengers, including five children, and five crew members at the crash site, CNN said.
Thirty-one bodies have been removed so far in an operation being delayed by stormy weather that has restricted the use of helicopters.
The plane was carrying a half-million dollars in cash to distribute to regional residents, and a large portion of the money appears to have burned up in the crash and subsequent fire.
The Indonesia Ministry of Social Affairs said the cash was being carried to Papua by Indonesian postal service officials to distribute to around 7,000 Papua residents, according to Andi Dulung, the ministry’s director-general of social support.
There are no banks or other ways to distribute money in many areas of the remote region, and many villages are not reachable by vehicle.
Families that had registered with the government were supposed to receive 600,000 rupiahs ($50) in funds.
